This post is a few months late, but I have included a few more recent details at the bottom. See the DoJ press release from May 9th.
From the press release:
Between 2010 and 2014, Mulholland controlled a group of individuals (the Mulholland Group) who together devised three interrelated schemes to: (1) induce U.S. investors to purchase stock in various thinly-traded U.S. public companies through fraudulent promotion of the stock, concealment of their ownership interests in the companies, and fraudulent manipulation of artificial price movements and trading volume in the stocks of those companies; (2) circumvent the IRS’s reporting requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA); and (3) launder the fraudulent proceeds from the stock manipulation schemes to and from the United States through five offshore law firms. Through these schemes, the Mulholland Group laundered more than $250 million in fraudulent proceeds.
To facilitate the interrelated schemes, the Mulholland Group used shell companies in Belize and Nevis, West Indies, which had nominees at the helm. This structure was designed to conceal the Mulholland Group’s ownership interest in the stock of U.S. public companies, in violation of U.S. securities laws, and enabled the Mulholland Group to engage in more than 40 “pump and dump” schemes. For example, this structure enabled the Mulholland Group to manipulate the stock of Cynk Technology Corp, which traded on the U.S. OTC markets under the ticker symbol CYNK. Using aliases such as “Stamps” and “Charlie Wolf,” Mulholland was intercepted on a court-authorized wiretap on May 15, 2014, admitting to his ownership of “all the free trading” or unrestricted shares of CYNK. Prior to this conversation between Mulholland and his trader at Legacy, there had been no trading in CYNK stock for 24 trading days. Over the next two months, the stock of CYNK rose from $0.06 per share to $13.90 per share, a more than $4 billion stock market valuation for a company that had no revenue and no assets.
Mulholland used the services of a U.S.-based lawyer to launder the more than $250 million generated through his stock manipulation of CYNK and other U.S. companies – directing the fraud proceeds to five law firm accounts and transmitting them back to members of the Mulholland Group and its co-conspirators. These concealment schemes also enabled Mulholland to evade reporting requirements to the IRS.
The plea change is here (PDF) although the details are not yet available. Mulholland’s sentencing is scheduled for August 23, 2016.
You can see some of the nice toys Mulholland has agreed to forfeit here (PDF), including a Dassault Falcon 50 private jet, a $5 million house in West Vancouver (3630 Mathers Avenue), multiple other properties in Belize in Canada, all funds in 26 different bank and securities accounts in Belize, Denmark, Cayman Islands, and the USA.
The original indictment of Mulholland and many others came back in September 2014.
Disclaimer. I have no position in any stock mentioned above. I have no relationship with any parties mentioned above. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.
It’s sad to see people do this kind of thing when it’s so easy to make money the honest way.